Ice and Climate No. 24

Ice and Climate Newsletter Volume 24: July 2015

ISSN 1811-0843

In this issue:

Our third newsletter of 2015 includes three great science features on major publications emanating from the CliC community, a special section on the CliC projects designed for the 6th version of the Coupled Modeling Intercomparision Project, CliC’s plan for the Year of Polar Prediction (YOPP), a number of reports from various CliC workshops held this Spring, a few calls for participation, announcements, and other things made possible with support from the Climate and Cryosphere Project. As always, we also include a list of our upcoming workshops and meetings, news from the cryosphere community and from our sponsor WCRP and sister projects. In this issue we also welcome our new WCRP Joint Planning Staff Liaison Mike Sparrow, two new CliC Fellows, and six new CliC Members of the Southern Ocean Region Panel!

Science Features:

New evidence links Arctic warming with severe weather in mid-latitudes, but more research and long-term observations are needed to resolve mechanisms

Large-Scale Climate Variability in Antarctica and the Southern Ocean Workshop

Updates on the Arctic Freshwater Synthesis and the Permafrost Carbon Network

Science Features

New evidence links Arctic warming with severe weather in mid-latitudes, but more research and long-term observations are needed to resolve mechanisms

-Contributed by James Overland, NOAA/PMEL, USA

Figure A: North America: Warmer Arctic temperatures can reinforce wavy Jet StreamIt is too soon to know for certain whether the Arctic played a role in cold events during recent winters, but new studies add to the growing weight of evidence linking increased Arctic temperatures with changes in mid-latitude weather patterns. This is according to research published in the Journal of Climate by authors from North America, Asia and Europe, that paints a picture of linkage mechanisms that vary by region and season.

“We are in the pre-consensus stage of a theory that links continued warming of the Arctic with some severe weather events,” noted Edward Hanna, an author of “The melting Arctic and Mid-latitude weather patterns: Are they connected?”

Arctic temperatures are increasing two to three times faster than those at the mid-latitudes. Some scientists have theorized that warming Arctic temperatures contribute to weaker upper level westerly winds and a wavier jet stream. This wavier path may have caused cold weather conditions to stall over the eastern seaboard and Midwest United States during recent winters, according to these theories.

It’s still a dotted line from Arctic warming to the destabilized or wavier jet stream and persistent weather regimes. Observations span too short a time period, less than 15 years, to conclude that Arctic warming plays a major role. A combination of forces -- including tropical energy, varying sea surface temperatures, mountain ranges, and chaotic atmospheric motions – likely interacted to create the unusually tenacious pattern. Case studies for North America suggest that a warming Arctic can also contribute to the cold pattern being more persistent (Figure A).

Figure B: Asia: Arctic-Midlatitude weather linkagesIn other regions and seasons, such as in eastern Asia (Figure B), robust mechanisms are emerging. The loss of sea ice and warmer temperatures north of central Asia increase the intensity of the Siberian high pressure system. This weather feature, in turn, fuels cold storms that can reach Japan, South Korea, and parts of China.

A way to advance research from a pre-consensus stage is to further investigate of the fundamental atmospheric circulation features, such as the meandering jet stream and the connection between the warmer Arctic and the negative phase of the Arctic Oscillation, an index of the dominant pattern of sea level air pressure in the Arctic.

“We are where other major theories such as plate tectonics and El Niño were before they were widely accepted,” said James Overland, the lead author. “We need a Grand Science Challenge to advance weather forecasting abilities and climate change prediction.”New studies of the changing Arctic and subarctic low frequency dynamics, together with additional Arctic observations, can contribute to improved skill in extended-range forecasts as planned by the WMO Polar Prediction Program (PPP).

Citation: The Melting Arctic and Mid-latitude Weather Patterns: Are They Connected? By James Overland, Jennifer A. Francis, Richard Hall, Edward Hanna, Seong-Joong Kim, and Timo Vihma published in the Journal of Climate, doi: 10.1175/JCLI-D-14-00822.1

Influence of internal variability on Arctic sea-ice trends

-Contributed by Alexandra Jahn, University of Colorado, Boulder, USA

Figure 1: Arctic September sea-ice extent anomalies.The ups and downs of minimum Arctic sea ice extent have captured the attention of many people in recent years. The Arctic sea ice loss between 2000 and 2007 was unprecedented in the satellite record, with a record minimum sea ice extent reached in 2007, followed by an even lower minimum in 2012. However, due to a recovery in the sea ice extent during 2013 (which continued in 2014), the more recent 7-year period (2007 to 2013) showed a small positive trend, indicating a slowdown in extent loss (see Figure 1). How likely is such a slowdown and what does it mean for the future of Arctic sea ice? These questions were addressed in a recent commentary in Nature Climate Change by Swart et al. (2015), which presented an analysis of observed and simulated Arctic sea ice trends over the satellite period (1979 to 2013).

Their analysis showed that in the CMIP5 climate models and in a large ensemble from the Community Earth System Model (CESM), the strong negative sea ice extent trend observed from 2000 to 2007 had only a 5% chance of occurring. This makes this decline a rather rare event, but within the range of expectations based on the climate models that reflect our best understanding of the climate system. On the other hand, a positive or neutral 7-year trend as observed more recently had a one-in-three (or 34%) chance of occurring, despite strong anthropogenic forcing. And with the same likelihood as the rapid ice loss between 2000 and 2007 (5%), this period of little change could last for 20 years or more according to the model simulations.

The cause for these reduced and enhanced short-term sea ice extent trends is climate variability due to internal variations in weather patterns, which can attenuate or amplify the forced response of September Arctic sea ice extent for years to decades. However, these short-term trends have little predictive skill for the future evolution of the Arctic sea ice during the 21st Century. Over the long term, Arctic sea ice extent continues to decline in all model simulations during the 21st century, due to the strong anthropogenic forcing that is warming the Arctic.

Due to the strong influence of internal variability, no exact date can be given for when the Arctic will become ‘ice-free’. Indeed, the model simulations analyzed by Swart et al. suggest that internal variability could lead to the intermittent re-appearance of late summer sea-ice for several decades after the first ‘ice-free’ summer.

As the climate continues to warm, researchers are working to understand how human-driven climate change will affect the release of greenhouse gases from arctic permafrost. Additional carbon emissions from remote places like the Arctic could significantly accelerate the pace of climate change.

An estimated 1330-1580 billion tons of organic carbon are stored in perennially-frozen (permafrost) soils of Arctic and subarctic regions, with the potential for even higher quantities stored deep in the frozen soil in places that have not yet been adequately quantified. The carbon is made up of plant and animal remnants stored in soil for hundreds to thousands of years. Thawing of frozen soil and subsequent decomposition of organic matter by microbes cause the release of carbon dioxide and methane greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.

Researchers from the Permafrost Carbon Network have worked to synthesize studies on this topic and published the results in a Nature review article in April 2015. According to the authors, the big question is how much, how fast and in what form will this carbon come out. These are the key factors that determine how much impact that permafrost carbon will have on future climate. The authors concluded that, across a range of studies, thawing permafrost in the Artic and sub-Arctic regions appears likely produce a gradual and prolonged release of substantial quantities of greenhouse gases spanning decades as opposed to an abrupt pulse release in a decade or less.

Modern climate change is attributed to human activities as a result of fossil fuel burning and deforestation, but natural ecosystems also play a role in the global carbon cycle. Human activities might start something in motion by releasing carbon gases but natural systems, even in remote places like the Arctic, are likely to add to this problem of climate change.

Raising the Visibility of the Cryosphere in Global Climate Models

- Introduction contributed by Greg Flato, CliC Co-Chair

Perhaps one of the most widely-cited activities of the WCRP is the series of Coupled Model Intercomparison Projects organized by the Working Group on Coupled Modelling (WGCM). The 5th version (CMIP5) was a very ambitious effort that provided coordinated global climate model simulations including, idealized, preindustrial, transient historical, decadal predictions, and longer-term future projections under different forcing scenarios. Results from these simulations served as the basis for much of the material in Chapters 9 through 14 of the Working Group 1 contribution to the IPCC 5th Assessment Report (AR5), as well as the new Atlas of Global and Regional Climate Projections (Annex 1 of the AR5). CMIP5 model output continues to be used extensively and can be accessed via the CMIP5 Data Portal based upon the ‘Earth System Grid Federation’. At the time of writing, there were 785 publications that cited CMIP5 model output.

The 6th version of this (CMIP6) is currently being planned and it is expected to be a major contribution to the upcoming IPCC Assessment Report. A thorough description of CMIP6 is available here, and involves a somewhat different approach than was the case for earlier versions of CMIP. In particular, the planning of various components of CMIP6 has been left to the scientific community to ‘self-organize’ to a large extent. CliC has been active in supporting this to ensure that the Cryosphere is well represented. In particular, we have organized workshops to facilitate the preparation of three model intercomparison activities specifically targeting the Cryosphere. These are:

ISMIP6 - an intercomparison of large-scale ice sheet models

ESMSnowMIP - a snow model intercomparison that is part of a broader land surface model intercomparison activity jointly organized with GEWEX

SIMIP - a diagnostic intercomparison aimed at evaluating the performance of the sea-ice component of CMIP6 global models.

These activities are described in more detail below, and each has an active group of international scientists leading the planning and coordination. The end result will undoubtedly contribute significantly to our understanding of the ability of global Earth System Models to simulate components of the cryosphere and their interactions with other components of the climate system. These intercomparisons also provide valuable information and guidance to model developers by revealing model strengths and weaknesses (through direct comparison to observations), and providing insight into the causes. Furthermore, by assuring that a comprehensive suite of relevant model output is archived, the broader scientific community will be able to probe model results, confront the model results with new observations and process understanding, and provide quantitative projections of future cryosphere changes that support impact assessment and adaptation planning.

One other CliC targeted activity that is not formally a part of CMIP6, but which will be closely aligned, is the Glacier Model Intercomparison Project. This effort will be closely aligned with ISMIP6 and evaluate models of global glacier mass balance which typically make use of climate projections from global Earth System models. GlacierMIP will complement the other CMIP6 cryosphere activities and will certainly provide information relevant to sea-level rise and water availability projections.

Ice Sheet Model Intercomparison (ISMIP6) endorsed by CMIP6

- Contributed by Sophie Nowicki, Tony Payne, and Eric Larour

The Ice Sheet Model Intercomparison for CMIP6 (ISMIP6) is a CliC targeted activity established in Autumn 2014 with the aim of integrating modelling of the ice sheets into the next phase of the international Coupled Modelling Intercomparison Project (CMIP6) so that projections of mass budget (hence of sea level) are more readily available for the next IPCC. Recently, we received the fantastic news that ISMIP6 has been formally endorsed by CMIP. This will greatly aid the collaboration between the ice-sheet community and those working on other aspects of the coupled climate system. In particular, it will ensure the coordinated provision of climate forcing data for the ice sheets, and focus attention on the quality of climate simulation over (and around) the ice sheets.

Over the year, ISMIP6 has been making steady progress. Important developments include an initial workshop held at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center 16-18th July 2014 (supported by CliC) at which the ISMIP6 concept was discussed with the ice sheet and climate modelling communities. An important outcome was the recognition that two strands of modelling would be necessary: fully coupled in which the ice sheet model sits within a larger climate model and is fully coupled to it; and stand-alone in which ice sheet models are forced by the output of climate models (but are not explicitly coupled to them). The former will focus on Greenland, while the latter will involve both ice sheets. It was felt that fully-coupled modelling is not currently feasible for Antarctica because of uncertainties in both the oceanic forcing and ice-dynamic response of the ice sheet.

A Steering Committee has since been formed and has been working towards a first intercomparison exercise with the aim of developing community engagement from at an early stage. The committee comprises: co-chairs Sophie Nowicki, Eric Larour and Tony Payne with Bill Lipscomb, Heiko Goelzer, Ayako Abe-Ouchi, Andrew Shepherd, Helene Seroussi and Jonathan Gregory. Initial ideas for this exercise were discussed at the EGU in a splinter meeting organised by Heiko and Tamsin Edwards. The final experimental design will be agreed at the forthcoming International Glaciological Society symposium in Cambridge (August 16th-21st) with results presented at the Fall AGU. The theme for this intercomparison will be the methods of model initialisation and their effect on projections.

See more information on the upcoming ISMIP6 meeting at the IGS Symposium in Cambridge in August 2015 here.

The Earth System Model-Snow Model Intercomparison Project (ESM-SnowMIP) is a new initiative that aims at evaluating and improving the representation of snow primarily (but not exclusively) in Earth System Models and at better quantifying snow-related climate feedbacks. It consists of a suite of coordinated experiments at the site level and on the global scale, plus numerical experiments in the Earth System Model framework.

ESM-SnowMIP is part of the WCRP Grand Challenge "Cryosphere in a Changing Climate" and is designed as a follow-up project to previous SnowMIP initiatives and complements, by a specific focus on snow, the Land Surface, Snow, and Soil moisture MIP (LS3MIP) subproject of CMIP6 that is designed to evaluate land surface modules of Earth System Models and to quantify land-related feedbacks. Compared to previous SnowMIP editions, a new and enlarged set of sites for model evaluation and testing is used.

We solicit participation in ESM-SnowMIP by:

Earth System Modeling groups, particularly those that participate to the LS3MIP subproject of CMIP6;

Snow and general land surface modelers (both site- and large scale).

At this stage, our aim is to obtain expressions of interest from the scientific community and receive feedback to the initial ESM-SnowMIP simulation protocol available here.

We anticipate that, besides progress due to coordinated model testing and benchmarking, the common participation by Earth System Modeling groups and specialized snow scientists will generate scientific momentum that will allow substantial knowledge transfer to the Earth System Modeling community, and thus allow for significant improvement of the representation of snow in global climate models.

The general timeline of ESM-SnowMIP aims to initiate site- and global-scale offline simulations in 2016, while coupled model simulations (complementing numerical experiments carried out in the LS3MIP framework) will start in 2018 after CMIP6.

To reach these aims, SIMIP has compiled a new protocol for the output of sea-ice related variables from coupled model simulations. This protocol allows any researcher to analyse the three main budgets that govern the evolution of sea ice, namely conservation of heat, the momentum budget, and salt/tracer conservation. Based on an analysis of these budgets, one can identify the main reason for a different response of sea ice both within a set of models and between individual models and reality. Thus, it becomes possible to understand model biases and to improve our simulations of future sea-ice evolution. In particular, we will be able to quantify how much of the current spread of model simulations of future Arctic sea-ice evolution can possibly still be improved by improving the model, versus how much of this spread is an inherent uncertainty of the dynamic climate system controlled by internal variability.

Supported by CliC, the SIMIP Steering Committee has over the past few months had an open consulting process with sea-ice researchers from various backgrounds to settle on a protocol that forms the best possible compromise between the complete coverage of sea-ice related model output and minimizing storage requirements. This protocol is now finalised and currently under consideration by the CMIP6 panel. In particular, the panel will establish how much of this protocol will be included into the recommended set of variables that must be stored for the CMIP6 DECK experiments. Once this is done, we will eagerly await the first results from CMIP6 to start analysing sea-ice evolution in the simulations at a more detailed level than has ever been possible before.

CliC News

Greenland Ice Sheet Ocean Observing System (GrIOOS) Workshop

- A CliC sponsored workshop

A two day workshop will be held on December 12-13 in San Francisco, USA, to discuss the design and implementation of a Greenland Ice Sheet Ocean Observing System (GrIOOS). The aim of GrIOOS is to provide long-term time series of critical in situ glaciological, oceanographic and atmospheric parameters at several key locations around Greenland. Observations will provide much needed information on the time-evolving relationships between the different climate forcings and glacier flow. GrIOOS was one of the key priorities identified at the 2013 US CLIVAR-sponsored International Workshop on Greenland Ice Sheet Ocean Interactions (GRISO) organized and summarized in the workshop report.

A workshop report will be drafted after the workshop and circulated for community input.

The workshop will be limited to ~35 participants. Expressions of interest to attend are solicited from the international community at this time (one page maximum). These should be sent to by August 23, 2015 and state clearly the proposed contribution to the workshop. Expressions of interest from groups representing a particular discipline, technique, or field site are strongly encouraged. The Workshop Steering Committee (see below) will select participants to represent the glaciological, oceanographic, climate, and instrumentation engineering research communities, with special attention to including early-career investigators, women, and underrepresented minorities. Attendees will be notified in September 2015.

The workshop is sponsored in part by SEARCH (Study of Environmental Arctic Change), CliC (Climate & Cryosphere), and GRISO (Greenland Ice Ocean Observing Network), as well as potentially other groups. Participants will be expected to cover their own travel to San Francisco (the workshop precedes the AGU Fall Meeting) but some funding will be available for the extra accommodation and meal costs.

We are looking a volunteer to help take on the editing and coordination of our FrostBytes. Each FrostBytes takes less than an hour to edit, sometimes much less, and we generally produce 4-5 a month… While the position is not paid, we have been able to offer travel funding to a CliC-related meeting as our way of saying thank you for your efforts. Speaking of thank you’s… We thank the lovely Lorna Little, our past editor, for her great service and with her will on her new endeavours. She has graciously agreed to help train the new editor and is available to ask questions if you are interested in learning more about the position.

If you had fun making your own FrostByte or enjoy working with multimedia and interacting with people while learning more about science, please get in touch with Gwen at the CliC office. Ideally, we would like this role filled before August.

YOPP is coordinated by a steering group together with a group of representatives from partners and like-minded initiatives, including CliC. YOPP is still in the planning stages, developing an implementation plan and coordinating with the polar science community in preparation for the intensive observational and modeling period in 2017-2019. Major activities in this period include dedicated model experiments, coupled data assimilation, intensive verification efforts, and special observational efforts including both field campaigns and satellite remote sensing.

The Climate and Cryosphere project (CliC) is one of the 4 core projects of the World Climate Research Programme, and is tasked with coordinating research efforts within the cryosphere community and climate research. The primary scientific goals of CliC are to assess and quantify the impacts of climatic variability and change on components of the cryosphere and their consequences for the climate system, and to determine the stability of the global cryosphere. These goals are closely aligned with the YOPP mission, as the cryosphere is a dominant component of the polar climate system that is the central focus of YOPP. As a partner organization to the YOPP initiative, CliC efforts in support of the YOPP objectives can make a critical contribution to the overall success of the project.

CliC is composed of established working groups, limited-lifetime targeted activities and technical committees. These contributions are based on existing projects; the role of CliC will be to coordinate efforts between researchers rather than initiate new projects. Ongoing work by these groups comprises the bulk of the contributions that CliC can make to the YOPP efforts. This document outlines these contributions in the observational and modeling domains as well as in outreach and community building.

CliC Welcomes New Fellows Bradley and Massonnet

CliC is pleased to welcome two new CliC Fellows to our project. Alice Bradley and Francois Massonnet are CliC's Fellows working on our contribtuions to the Year of Polar Prediction. They join Ylva Sjoberg to become the three early career researchers who are part of our pilot Fellows program. Each of these talented early career researchers are tasked with helping to coordinate and lead various activities under the CliC umbrella.

Alice Bradley is a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Colorado Boulder in the aerospace engineering department, focusing on remote sensing and Earth sciences. She is currently working on her dissertation, titled "Ice formation in the Arctic Ocean: Observed processes and climate feedbacks." Alice's research broadly focuses in sea ice - ocean - atmosphere interactions in environments with partial sea ice cover; ongoing research includes both the marginal ice zone in the Arctic and polynyas in the Antarctic, with a special focus in unmanned aircraft as a sensing platform. She did her undergraduate work in electrical engineering at Dartmouth College and received her M.S. in remote sensing from the University of Colorado. For more information on Alice, visit: http://ccar.colorado.edu/abradley/

Francois Massonnet obtained his PhD in Sciences in 2014 from the Université catholique de Louvain (UCL). During his PhD, he developed various metrics to evaluate sea ice models used in the framework of climate reconstructions, predictions and projections. He participated as a contributing author to the IPCC WG1 AR5 and was involved in several national and international research projects about climate prediction and predictability. He also implemented data assimilation methods in large-scale sea ice models for state and parameter estimation.

Dr Massonnet is now a F.R.S.-FNRS Post-Doctoral Fellow from the UCL and undertakes a 18-month scientific visit at the Catalan Institute of Climate Sciences (IC3, Barcelona) in the Climate Forecasting Unit (CFU) where he explores the seasonal-to-interannual predictability of extreme winters at mid-latitudes in response to Arctic climate change. In parallel, he is also implementing initialization methods for near-term prediction in both the Arctic and Antarctic regions. He is also part of the CliC Sea Ice and Modeling Forum and has written several reports for CliC on sea ice observation needs for modeling. Learn more about him here: http://uclouvain.academia.edu/FrancoisMassonnet

They join Ylva Sjoberg who is helping with our Permafrost Research Priorities targeted activity. Ylva's PhD project focuses on exploring the interactions between permafrost and groundwater, which is crucial for understanding future changes that can be expected in the Arctic with climate warming. The aim is to assess the effects of permafrost thaw on hydrology both at a detailed and process-oriented scale, and at catchment scales. This is done by analyzing long-term river discharge data, field mapping of ground-ice using geophysical methods, and physically-based modeling of coupled groundwater flows and heat transport. Ylva is helping to facilitate the IPA/CliC Permafrost Research Priorities Targeted Activity.

Report Available: 2015 Permafrost Carbon Network Leads Meeting

- Contributed by Christina Schaedel and Ted Schuur

The Permafrost Carbon Network (www.permafrostcarbon.org) held another successful workshop for synthesis leads and co-leads in Flagstaff, AZ, USA (May 11-12, 2015). The objectives of this workshop were to bring together leading scientists of the Permafrost Carbon Network to discuss and plan new synthesis products. One particular focus of this meeting was to advance model development by exploring benchmarking tools that can be provided by field and lab based scientists along with finalized model output from the Permafrost Carbon Model Intercomparison Project that estimates the permafrost carbon climate feedback for this century and beyond. In advance of the workshop, participants prepared scoping papers that contained details about the new syntheses. The majority of the workshop was used to discuss and refine these newly proposed synthesis activities as a group and to outline best strategies for ways forward. The follow-up activities of this workshop are outlined in individual scoping documents, which are shared with members of the Permafrost Carbon Network through our website. Upcoming, we will have short presentations during our 5th Annual Meeting of the Permafrost Carbon Network at AGU in December of 2015, where brief updates about the progress of individual synthesis activities will be given to the larger community of scientists. The workshop in Flagstaff, AZ was sponsored by the National Science Foundation, Climate and Cryosphere (CliC) and contributions from individual participants.

CliC Director on Arctic Panel at IOC-UNESCO

An Ocean Science Day was organized by the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission (IOC-UNESCO) on 17 June 2015 to share recent developments in ocean science with representatives of its 147 Member States, networks and partners. The overall objective was to improve decision makers’ understanding and awareness of current challenges and emerging issues, through lectures and panel discussions with eminent experts. Presentations and debates focused on the linkages between ocean health and human wellbeing, the potential of the latest advancements in monitoring technology, current scientific challenges in the Arctic and the legacy of the International India Ocean Expedition.

These survey responses have been brought together into a summary report, which we are now circulating again around the entire Southern Ocean community (both operational and research). Sections of the report include sea ice variables, atmospheric parameters, SST, SSH, SSS, terrestrial cryospheric connections, marine microbes / ocean color, marine biology, surface winds, and more.

We encourage all interested members of the Southern Ocean community to review relevant sections and submit any comments edits by the end of July. We want you, the community, to ensure that the content is complete and that the report’s recommendations are detailed, innovative, and accurate. The aim is that this review will represent the Southern Ocean community’s satellite data needs for the coming decade. It is designed to stand as an important strategy paper that provides the rationale and information required for future strategic planning and investment.

Seventeen glaciologists and climatologists met in Sheffield for a two-day international research workshop on 19/20 May on how we can best improve the representation of Greenland Ice Sheet surface mass balance (SMB) in computer models of climate change. This is a challenging but exciting prospect as we attempt to model SMB, which equals net snowfall minus snow/ice meltwater losses, occurring over an ice mass with the combined surface area of France, Germany Italy and Spain.

The event was sponsored by the Climate and Cryosphere project of the World Climate Research Programme (WCRP CliC) and by the Ice Sheet Mass Balance and Sea Level working group (ISMASS)that is co-sponsored by CliC. Participating scientists came from several different countries including the the UK, Netherlands, Belgium, Denmark, USA - including representation from NASA - and Chile. The delegates included representation of all the SMB models used in the recent Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's (IPCC) Fifth Assessment Report (Working Group I, Chapter 13 on Sea Level Change).

There is still very significant disagreement in the amounts of snowfall and meltwater runoff simulated by the different SMB models, and so we aim to reconcile model differences through a more thorough and detailed comparison of output from the different models than has previously been undertaken. The workshop also addressed the important question of where there are gaps in information from weather stations and ice-core data which are crucial for validating SMB models over Greenland.

It is anticipated that the SMB model intercomparison project and improvements promoted by this workshop will result not only in a dedicated peer-reviewed journal publication significantly advancing the science within the next 6-12 months but will also feed directly into improving estimates of the contribution of the Greenland Ice Sheet to global sea-level rise, to be reported in the next IPCC report around 2020. Apart from one and a half days of talks and discussion held in the Ron Johnston Research Room, the workshop featured a brief excursion to our Bradfield Environmental Laboratory on the second afternoon (when the showers held off!), as well as a workshop dinner in a traditional Sheffield pub. A great time was had by all.

Utility and Quality of Reanalyses in the Polar Regions Session at Fall AGU 2015

Session ID: 8005Session Title: Utility and quality of reanalyses in the polar regionsConveners: David Bromwich and James Renwick

Reanalyses are key tools for investigating climate variability and change in the data sparse polar regions. Originally focused on the atmosphere only, some reanalyses now focus solely on the ocean or the land surface, while coupled atmosphere-ocean reanalyses are starting to be produced. There are many challenges to producing reliable reanalyses in the polar regions. Contributions are solicited on the following: intercomparison of reanalyses, both global and regional; polar-specific challenges regarding observations, data assimilation, model physics, oceanic boundary conditions, especially sea ice; reanalysis for the Southern Ocean and Antarctica before the start of the satellite era; ensemble approaches for background error, reanalysis uncertainty, and compositing reanalyses; and reliability of trends and climatologies.

Please click here for more information on the abstract submission process. Abstract submission deadline: August 5, 2015Further details, including invited speakers, date, and time, will be announced in due course. More information on the session is available here.

Permafrost Carbon Network: June 2015 Update

- The Permafrost Carbon Network is a CliC sponsored activity

A few news items from the Permafrost Carbon Network (PCN)….

An update onthe PCN lead/co-lead workshopPCN had a very successful workshop for synthesis leads and co-leads on May 11-12, 2015, in Flagstaff, AZ. In advance of the workshop, participants prepared scoping papers which contained details about the new synthesis activities that were then discussed at the workshop. All scoping papers are available on the Google Drive for PCN members. There are opportunities for interested members to become involved in these synthesis activities and so we encourage you to have a look through the suggested activities and to get in touch with the corresponding lead if you have data to share or are interested in participating. The full agenda and a list of participants can be found online. The meeting was co-sponsored by CliC.

Cryosphere Grand Challenge at the Climate Symposium 2014

The Climate Symposium 2014: Climate Research and Earth Observation from Space-Climate Information for Decision Making was held in Darmstadt, Germany, 13-17 October, 2014, and had some 500 participants from 49 countries.

Drs Greg Flato and Vladimir Kattsov organized one of the 6 sessions around the Cryosphere Grand Challenge – the session was entitled “Cryosphere in a Warming World” and included 8 oral presentations, with keynote talks by Dr. Jeffrey Key (NOAA) and Dr. Chris Derksen (Environment Canada), along with a number of posters. The meeting included a very interesting panel discussion on “Climate Information for Decision Makers”. A summary of the meeting has been published in Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society (BAMS), and complete details regarding the programme, videos and photos, and other information can be found on the meeting website.

Mike served as Executive Director for SCAR - Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research for the last five years, and Executive officer before that. Previous to moving to the SCAR Secretariat in 2007, Mike was based at the National Oceanography Centre, Southampton, working for the CLIVAR project, where he was responsible for coordinating CLIVAR's interests in the Southern Ocean and Antarctic region as well as in Africa. Mike is a Southern Ocean physical oceanographer, with a PhD in Oceanography, a Masters degree in Atmospheric Sciences and a Bachelor in Physics.

CliC looks forward to working with Mike in his new position at WCRP. Please join us in welcoming him!

Prague is the New Location for ESA-CliC Earth Observation and Cryosphere Science 2016

Due to ‘forces majeures’, the ESA-CliC Earth Observation (EO) and Cryosphere Science 2016, to take place from May 10 to 13, 2016, will be held in Prague Conference Centre, Prague, Czech Republic, instead of Frascati, Italy.

The Conference will be organized as a special event of the 2016 ESA Living Planet Symposium (LPS) to be held from May 9 to 13, 2016. The Conference scientific committee will be included in the LPS one with the same role as before. The organizing committee will be part of the LPS programme committee defining the programme of the conference, in this case, the Cryosphere special event.

The Conference website has already been changed (with the new venue and information) and the event is featured on the LPS website, under special events.

After four years this meeting will be organized again, looking for a wide discussion and networking forum for the cryosphere, climate, hydrology, modelling and EO communities to review the latest advances in the use of EO for cryosphere science and discuss the main scientific opportunities and research challenges for the future.

The purpose of this topical conference, jointly organised by ESA and CliC, is:

to assess recent progress in the full range of cryosphere relevant EO-based observations and techniques;

to review the major scientific advances in cryosphere science;

to discuss the challenges and opportunities in cryosphere science offered by the new generation of EO satellites as well as the major observational gaps for the coming decades;

to consolidate a scientific roadmap outlining the main priorities and challenges for the cryosphere community in terms of novel observations, enhanced EO-based products and techniques and innovative scientific results.

The organising committee would like to invite you to participate and contribute to the 2016 Conference.

Update on the Arctic Freshwater Synthesis

The Arctic Freshwater Synthesis Final Science Meeting was held at the Water & Climate Impacts Research Centre (W-CIRC) at the University of Victoria, in Canada from May 12 to 14, 2015. Representatives from the six components (terrestrial hydrology, terrestrial ecology, resources, ocean, atmosphere and modelling) got together to work on strengthening the cross-component integration between the six manuscripts as well as with the introduction, conclusion, and summary. The component representatives were able to sit together and interact directly with each other which made this process easier. A lot of progress was done during this meeting and the authors are now working on the final stages before the deadline submission on July 1.

The meeting was funded by CliC through the grant awarded from the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs for this project. The meeting was co-organized by W-CIRC and the CiC International Project Office.

The Arctic Freshwater Synthesis (AFS) was also presented at the Arctic Science Summit Week, on April 28, 2015, in Toyama, Japan. The presentations are available online in the Downloads folder of the AFS webpage.

Ice‐ocean interactions are considered to lie at the basis of current and future ice mass loss of the Antarctic ice sheet. One of the feedback mechanisms that can be generated through such ice‐ocean interaction is the so‐called marine ice sheet instability, which generates at present the most important uncertainty for the projections of sea level in the context of global warming.

A set of 3 types of idealized intercomparison experiments for studying marine ice sheet processes in ice‐sheet, ocean and coupled models have been developed over the past year. MISMIP+ was announced at EGU 2014 and presented at AGU 2014. The remaining experiments (ISOMIP+ and MISOMIP1) were conceived of at WCRP Climate and Cryosphere workshop at NYU Abu Dhabi in October 2014. All three experiments were presented at the MISOMIP Splinter meeting at EGU (April 2015) by Xylar Asay‐Davis and Stephen Cornford and will be discussed again at this meeting in more detail.

The Large-scale climate variability in Antarctica and the Southern Ocean over decades to centuries, and links to extra-polar climate workshop was held from March 24 to 26, 2015, at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, in La Jolla, USA. The workshop was sponsored by PAGES – Past Global Changes, the World Climate Research Programme (WCRP), the Polar Climate Predictability Initiative (PCPI), and the Climate and Cryosphere Project (CliC). The CliC International Project Office also provided logistical support to the meeting organizers and participants.

The objective of the workshop was to study changes in large-scale patterns of Antarctic climate variability over the last decades to centuries and the extrapolar-polar connections by combining proxy records, historical data, modern instrumental records and model results.

The workshop was attended by 30 international scientists, including early career scientists. Participants were drawn from the atmosphere, ocean, sea ice and modeling communities, with expertise in satellite, observational, historical and palaeoclimate data, and modelling.

A major outcome of the meeting was agreement among participants of the value of cross-disciplinary, inter-disciplinary work, and that the participation of many scientists involved in PAGES2K is indispensable for interdisciplinary comparisons such as this, with a recommendation of more support for this type of joint activity. Other conclusions were for working towards obtaining data for oceanic areas in the Southern Hemisphere, namely imaging, digitization and processing of meteorological observations from ships’ logbooks, and for development of new proxies such as cold corals and mollusks.

Another outcome was concrete plans for a review paper, diagrams were decided upon, and these are now in progress. Additionally, new links for collaborative research were established, which will be monitored/followed up by the organisers.

van den Broeke receives 2015 EGU Louis Agassiz Medal

The European Geosciences Union’s 2015 Louis Agassiz Medal has been awarded to Michiel R. van den Broeke for fundamental contributions to model mass balance on the ice sheets with the Regional Atmospheric Climate Model (RACMO) model. CliC is pleased to have been part of his nomination process and congratulates Dr. van den Broeke on his achievements.

Michiel R. van den Broeke is a meteorologist who has applied his expertise and understanding to a wide range of problems in modern and palaeoglaciology. He started work on establishing regional climate modelling as a credible tool for determining surface processes over the ice sheets of Antarctica and Greenland a little more than a decade ago. Since then, he has revolutionised the field by developing and implementing state-of-the-art regional climate models for present-day and past ice sheets that have been able to reproduce the climate and surface mass balance with unprecedented detail and accuracy. The result of this pioneering work has been the application of his model output in numerous high profile and seminal studies on Antarctica and Greenland, and more recently to smaller ice masses.

What is also notable about van den Broeke is his openness and enthusiasm for his work to be used by the community. The result of this is that RACMO is the leading model for use in any application which requires climate data over the polar regions and his list of collaborators is, therefore, truly international, long and impressive. His work is cited extensively in both the cryosphere and sea-level chapters of the IPCC 5th Assessment Report and he is a contributing author to the latter chapter. His novel and innovative research is, therefore, having an impact not only on the science but also on policy. He is not, however, “just a modeller” and is in Greenland most seasons, maintaining the network of Automatic Weather Stations known as the ‘K transect’ and has also undertaken fieldwork in the Antarctic and elsewhere. Through this combination of field study and modelling he is making fundamental advances to our understanding of atmosphere-ice interactions and processes.

In addition to his exceptional research credentials, he has also found time to serve the glaciological community in a number of important and lasting ways. He has been a contributor to the Karthaus Summer Schools over many years (training future generations of glaciologists), was an editor for the journal of Glaciology for six years and has been a co-editor-in-chief of the EGU journal, The Cryosphere, since 2007. He has also convened many sessions at the EGU General Assembly and other meetings on ice-sheet climate processes. He is, therefore, someone who has put a great deal back into the cryospheric scientific community. He is a remarkably rounded and exceptionally talented scientist who has contributed both scientifically, educationally and in service to the cryospheric community in a lasting, unique and selfless way. He is an excellent role model to his peers and young scientists coming into the field. Michiel R. van den Broeke is, without question, an extremely worthy recipient of the Louis Agassiz Medal.

Conference Statement Released - Integrating Arctic Research: A Roadmap for the Future

Arctic Science Summit Week 2015 in Toyama, Japan (23–30 April) brought together nearly 700 international scientists, students, policy makers, research managers, Indigenous Peoples and others interested in developing, prioritizing and coordinating plans for future Arctic research. The Conference was organized by the International Arctic Science Committee and the Science Council of Japan, with the support of many other international partners (www.assw2015.org).

Several overarching messages emerged during the Conference:

Changes in the Arctic are challenging our understanding of their consequences and our ability to provide knowledge for decision-makers.

There needs to be a greater sense of urgency among decision-makers and awareness by the general public regarding the global importance of changes taking place in the Arctic.

It is critical to anticipate changes in the Arctic rather than respond to them, but to do this requires sustained observations and improved understanding of local, regional and global processes. These research challenges must be addressed in a coordinated and timely manner to ensure sustainable development and resilient Arctic communities and ecosystems.

The rapidly changing Arctic initiates changes that cascade through the global system impacting weather, commerce and ecosystems in the more temperate regions. Linkages across disciplines, scales, and diverse knowledge systems must be addressed in future research activities.

Understanding the vulnerability and resilience of Arctic environments and societies requires increased international scientific cooperation, including contributions from non-Arctic states.

More effective use must be made of local and traditional knowledge by engaging northern and Indigenous communities in setting priorities, the co-design and co-production of research, and the dissemination of this knowledge by ensuring appropriate access to research data and results.

It is essential to build long-term human capacity to support relevant observations and research among scientists, decision-makers and Arctic residents, including Indigenous Peoples, through education and effective public engagement, and by adopting shared principles to guide research activities.

New markets for Arctic resources and associated activities, including trade, tourism and transportation, will likely emerge faster than the necessary infrastructures on land and sea. Sustainable infrastructure development and innovation to strengthen the resilience of Arctic communities requires a collaborative approach involving scientists, communities, governments, and industry.

The Toyama Conference was a critical step in an international Arctic research planning process involving hundreds of scientists from 23 countries working to improve our understanding of the consequences of changes taking place in the Arctic region, and their connection to global environmental, economic and social processes. These rapid transformations occurring in the Arctic are affecting the entire Earth system, including its climate and weather extremes, through increased temperatures and the continuing loss of ice, glaciers, snow and permafrost. New economic interests in the Arctic have established the region as a larger player in the global economy, but also with very significant local effects. In spite of rapid environmental and social change, the Arctic remains a region of geopolitical stability which is a pre-condition for sustaining Arctic research.

The Final Report from the Conference, guided by discussions and contributions from many partner organizations, will be completed later in 2015. This Report will catalyze and inform the implementation of critical, cooperative, international Arctic research programs over the next decade. CliC is a member of the steering group for this effort, represented by Director Jenny Baeseman.

New CliC Members of the Southern Ocean Region Panel

Six new members have been appointed to the CLIVAR/CliC/SCAR Southern Ocean Region Panel from the CliC Community. The Southern Ocean Region Panel serves as a forum for the discussion and communication of scientific advances in the understanding of climate variability and change in the Southern Ocean and to advise CLIVAR, CliC, and SCAR on progress, achievements, new opportunities and impediments in internationally-coordinated Southern Ocean research. The Panel is chaired by Lynne Talley from Scripps and John Fyfe from Environment Canada. The new CliC representatives on the panel are:

As part of CliC's commitment to sharing our science with the world, we have partnered with APECS to develop FrostBytes, 30-60s videos about 'cool' research. People funded through the CliC project are required to make a FrostByte to share their research. Special thanks to former CliC' FrostBytes editor, Lorna Little, who volunteered her time to create these little gems.

Cryosphere Community News

Updates from other groups, partners, institutes and organizations that are of interest to the cryosphere community.

Baeseman Appointed New Executive Director of SCAR

SCAR is pleased to announce that Dr Jenny Baeseman has just been hired as the new SCAR Executive Director. Jenny has been the Executive Director of the WCRP Climate and Cryosphere (CliC) project since 2012 and previous to that was the Founding Director of the Association of Polar Early Career Scientists (APECS).

Jenny has a strong history of working with SCAR in these capacities and in addition has spent three field seasons in the McMurdo Dry Valleys and participated in a Students On Ice Antarctic University Expedition to the Antarctic Peninsula. She will begin to transition into the role starting on 1 July and be full time starting on 1 September. We look forward to Jenny continuing the excellent trajectory marked by our previous executive directors, Colin Summerhayes and Mike Sparrow.

We also want to take this opportunity to publicly thank Mike Sparrow for his efficient work and important contribution to SCAR during the last five years as Executive Director, and wish him all the best in his new job. We also thank Rosemary Nash and Eoghan Griffin for their continued excellent work and commitment to SCAR, especially in these particularly busy times.

PAGES is seeking a new Executive Director

PAGES coordinates and promotes past global change research. Its primary objective is to improve our understanding of past changes in the Earth system in order to obtain better projections of future climate and environment, and inform strategies for sustainability. PAGES serves the paleoscience community by supporting and facilitating international and interdisciplinary cooperation and collaboration in the paleo-environmental sciences.

PAGES is funded by the Swiss and US National Science Foundations and NOAA. It is a designated core project of Future Earth and has a scientific partnership with WCRP.

Successful candidates will have a substantive research record in past global change science, possess broad interdisciplinary knowledge of past global change science and its application to sustainability research, be experienced in international scientific collaboration, and demonstrate the ability to lead an interdisciplinary, internationally distributed scientific community. Fluency in spoken and written English is required. German would be an advantage.

To apply:For further information on the role, PAGES, and the application procedure please refer to the Position Description. The closing date for applications is 26 July 2015.

New Journal launched: Frontiers in Cryospheric Sciences

"Cryospheric Sciences", a new (gold) open-access international peer-reviewed journal was launched a few days ago, and is open for submissions. The journal complements the landscape of existing cryospheric journals with an alternative innovative publication model with a strong IT focus with state-of-the-art web-based features.

The journal is a speciality section of "Frontiers in Earth Sciences" which itself is part of the Frontiers journals that include almost 50 journals across >350 academic topics ranging from medicine to economics, engineering and Earth Sciences. The Frontiers office is located in Lausanne, Switzerland.

"Cryospheric Sciences" aims for rapid publication of original, innovative, high-quality research on all aspects of the cryosphere on Earth and elsewhere in the solar system including studies on glaciers and ice sheets, seasonal snow, frozen ground, and sea, lake and river ice; as well as their interaction with other components of the Earth-climate system.In the Editorial Board, there are currently 18 Associate Editors covering the breadth of cryospheric sciences, and >100 so-called 'Review Editors' who constitute a pool of primary 'go-to reviewers'. The chief editor, Regine Hock, is a very active member of the CliC community.

New IceBridge and CryoSat-2 sea ice thickness data sets

Since 2012 the IceBridge project has released experimental quick look sea ice thickness data to aid in seasonal sea ice forecasting and other time-sensitive projects. New data for the 2015 spring season in the Arctic are now available via NSIDC. Two data products are available:

In an effort to increase transparency in the derived basin-wide Arctic sea ice thickness data set, we have also provided full resolution retrievals of surface elevation from CryoSat-2 data which are used to produce the monthly mean 25 km gridded data.

Within a few months the quick look product will be replaced by the archival version, which will be available here.

Call for Pre-Proposals - NPRB Arctic Program

The North Pacific Research Board (NPRB) announces the release of the Arctic Program request for pre-proposals. Pre-proposals must be submitted on or before 31 July 2015; the anticipated deadline for full proposals is 15 January 2016.

NPRB is launching an Arctic Integrated Ecosystem Research Program in partnership with several collaborating organizations and agencies. NPRB and funding partners seek to develop a coordinated, collaborative program to fund science that will improve understanding of Arctic marine ecosystems. The program aims to inform a mechanistic understanding of the processes that structure the marine ecosystem and influence the distribution, life history, and interactions of biological communities in the Chukchi Sea, Bering Strait, and northern Bering Sea. NPRB intends to fund several projects that will integrate to achieve this goal.

This program is a collaborative partnership -- the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) and the North Slope Borough/Shell Baseline Studies Program have each contributed funds to support new research associated with this program. Several other institutions and agencies have identified ongoing research that will coordinate with and contribute to this program, and additional participation is welcome.

If you have questions or are interested in discussing partnership opportunities, please contact:Matthew Baker; Email: and Danielle Dickson; Email:

Open Science Earth Observation Meeting

The European Space Agency (ESA) is preparing for innovative Earth Observation (EO) scientific exploitation activities - referred as Earth Observation Open Science 2.0 - to maximize the scientific benefits of Earth Observation (EO) data by capitalizing on the digital revolution.

In this context, ESA is organizing a community consultation meeting in ESRIN (Frascati, Italy) on October 12-14, 2015, to explore the new challenges and opportunities for EO research created by the rapid advances in Information and Communications Technologies. These include open tools and software, data-intensive science, virtual research environment, e-infrastructure, citizen science, crowdsourcing, advanced visualization, e-learning and education of the new generation of Data scientists.

The conference will present precursor activities in EO Open Science and Innovation and develop a Roadmap preparing for future ESA scientific exploitation activities. The conference will be followed by a Hackathon on October 15-16, 2015, in ESRIN for interested developers.

Deadline for submission of abstract and exhibitor request: June 19, 2015

To read more about the community consultation meeting, visit the webpage.

The Arctic in Rapid Transition (ART) executive committee announced availability of priority sheets addressing future Arctic marine and coastal research from the perspective of international early- and mid-career scientists.

The seven ART priority sheets comprise perspectives on arctic biodiversity, arctic oceanography, physical processes in sea ice, arctic land-ocean interactions, paleoceanographic time series from the Arctic, proxy calibration and verification, and law in the Arctic.

The ART priority sheets are the product of the second international science workshop entitled "Integrating spatial and temporal scales in the changing Arctic System: towards future research priorities" (ISTAS) organized in October 2014 by the Arctic in Rapid ART network, the Association of Polar Early Career Scientists (APECS) and APECS France, and the European Institute for Marine Studies (IUEM). During this workshop, future arctic research priorities were discussed with regard to the natural variability of arctic marine and coastal systems over various spatial and temporal scales.

The priority sheets were one of the ART network's contributions to the third International Conference on Arctic Research Planning (ICARP III) conference in Toyama, Japan in April 2015. The sheets aim to foster an improved understanding of the changing arctic system in future arctic research.

To download the priority sheets please go to the the ART or ISTAS websites.

For more information about the 2014 ISTAS workshop, visit the website.

Universal Sustainable Development Goals - Understanding the Transformational Challenge for Developed Countries Report now available

The Stakeholder Forum was recently commissioned by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) to undertake a rapid new study to aid better understanding of the implications of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) for Developed Countries. A report of the study was published on May 14 and can be accessed and downloaded here.

The study introduces a new methodology for assessing the degree of both transformational challenge represented by each of the different SDGs (and their respective targets) and the transformational changes that will need to be made in implementing them indifferent national circumstances.

A first application of the methodology leads to the conclusion that the most transformational opportunities for developed countries in implementing the SDGs domestically are clustered around the goals of transitioning economies towards more sustainable modes of consumption and production, greater sustainable energy production and combating climate change. This contrasts with the position of developing countries for which the goal of eradicating poverty is still the central challenge, and for which they still need support in many forms from more developed countries and the international community.

Please contact Farooq Ullah for additional information about this study.

CliC would like to take this opportunity of the new collaboration agreement to encourage the cryosphere community to explore collaborations with PAGES. If you are and would like our help, please let us know.

PAGES - Past Global Changes supports research aimed at understanding the Earth’s past environment in order to make predictions for the future. PAGES encourages international and interdisciplinary collaborations and seeks to promote the involvement of scientists from developing countries in the global paleo-community discourse.

Good opportunities for collaboration are highlighted in the latest PAGES Newsletter including proposals for new working groups and workshops. For more information on PAGES, visit their website.

SCAR Newsletter - April 2015 edition

The latest issue of the SCAR newsletter is now available. With articles on various SCAR awards and on the Antarctic Roadmap Challenges (ARC) Project, this edition also covers:

The US CLIVAR website has a new section called ‘Research Highlights’ that features the latest US CLIVAR-related research findings from the community, from decreasing calcification in the Southern Ocean to extreme sea level rise.

The 2015 US CLIVAR Summit will be held from August 4 to 6, 2015, in Wyndham Westward Look Resort, Tuscon, Arizona. The 2015 US CLIVAR Summit will bring together the members of the Scientific Steering Committee and its three implementation Panels, agency managers, and invited speakers to review progress, identify opportunities, and develop strategies to advance US CLIVAR goals under the direction of the Science Plan. The meeting will have two special sessions, one on the warming haitus and the other on forecasting ENSO. An agenda, logistics, and additional information will be coming soon.

With the latest update of the GTN-G website, a quicker overview of datasets on global glacier distribution and changes is provided. A new “Global Glacier Browser” provides a map based overview on all available datasets (i.e., GLIMS, RGI, WGI, GlaThiDa, FoG, GPC). A new “Global Glacier Dataset Catalogue” provides standardized one page descriptions of these datasets and links to the individual data access pages.

All these datasets are compiled within the GTN-G and are made freely available for scientific and educational purposes. The use of data and information from GTN-G requires acknowledgement to the GTN-G operational body (i.e., WGMS, NSIDC, GLIMS) and/or the original investigators and sponsoring agencies according to the citation recommendations given in the individual datasets.

The Centre for Polar Observation and Modelling (CPOM) announced the public release of their first Arctic sea ice thickness product. This dataset contains near real time (NRT) measurements of Arctic sea ice thickness averaged over the most recent 2, 14, and 28 day periods, and will be updated daily. Data can be inspected and downloaded for the entire northern hemisphere, for selected oceanographic basins, and at individual locations.

The CPOM NRT sea ice thickness product is derived from CryoSat-2 fast delivery data processed by the European Space Agency, and is an aid for operational activities and services. Making historical data available is their next task. The product can be accessed here.

This work was funded by the UK Natural Environment Research Council and by the European Space Agency.

New EASE-Grid Sea Ice Age Dataset

The NASA National Snow and Ice Data Center Distributed Active Archive Center (NSIDC DAAC) is pleased to announce the release of the EASE-Grid Sea Ice Age data set. This data set provides weekly estimates of sea ice age for the Arctic Ocean from remotely sensed sea ice motion and sea ice extent beginning in November 1978. The ice age data are derived from a number of passive microwave images, visible and infrared radiometers drifting buoys, and wind data.

1st announcement of the International Conference on Regional Climate: CORDEX 2016

The International Conference on Regional Climate (ICRC): CORDEX 2016 will take place from May 17 to 20, 2016, in Stockholm, Sweden.

The second International Conference on Regional Climate - CORDEX 2016 will bring together the international community involved in regional climate research and its applications, with particular emphasis on CORDEX and related WCRP regional climate activities. The Conference will promote the CORDEX vision to advance and coordinate the science and application of regional climate downscaling through global partnerships.

The flyer with initial information on CORDEX 2016 is now available here.

The session framework and full conference website will be launched in the next two months.

Mathieu Morlighem, winner of the 2015 IACS Early Career Scientist Prize

The winner of the International Association of Cryospheric Sciences (IACS) 2015 Early Career Scientist Prize, the inaugural award, is Dr Mathieu Morlighem, Assistant Professor at the University of California Irvine, USA. The IACS Early Career Scientist Prize is an annual cash prize of € 1000 plus a certificate awarded to a nominated early career scientist who is assessed as having published the best scientific paper on a cryospheric subject during the previous calendar year (2014). The objective of the prize is to recognize excellence in cryospheric science by honouring and promoting someone in the early-stages of her or his career, and to draw attention to the work of IACS. The 2015 Prize will be formally "presented" during the IACS Plenary Administrative Session on 26 June 2015 during the XXVI IUGG General Assembly in Prague. More details available here.

The 2015 Prize was awarded to Dr Morlighem for his paper Deeply incised submarine glacial valleys beneath the Greenland Ice Sheet (M. Morlighem, E. Rignot, J Mouginot, H. Seroussi, and E. Larour. Nature Geoscience, 7(6):418–422, June 2014). In this paper, Dr Morlighem and his colleagues use high resolution satellite measurements of surface elevation and surface ice velocity, plus an ice-mass conservation optimization scheme, to infer ice thickness and bed topography along the periphery of the Greenland ice sheet where the ice is sliding on its base. Their results, which are at a much higher level of spatial detail than previous airborne radar measurements, reveal widespread ice-covered valleys that extend significantly deeper below sea level and farther inland than previously thought. These findings imply that the outlet glaciers of Greenland, and the ice sheet as a whole, are potentially more vulnerable to ocean thermal forcing and peripheral thinning than previously inferred.

Dr Morlighem's paper was awarded the Prize against very strong competition from nominated papers by other Early Career Scientists. The Selection Panel for the Prize expressed their pleasure at the very high standard of the nominated entries. The Prize will be awarded again in 2016.

Eric Larour, who is a co-author on the awarded paper, is co-chairing the Ice Sheet Model Intercomparison for the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project 6 (ISMIP6) that brings together for the first time a consortium of international ice sheet models and coupled ice sheet-climate models to fully explore the sea level rise contribution from the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets. ISMIP6 is a CliC Targeted Activity and is a collaboration between ice sheet and climate modelers, along with observationalists and remote sensed expert over the polar regions. ISMIP6 was established in fall 2014, but is based on a long history of Ice Sheet Model Intercomparison Projects or ISMIP, including the more recent European ice2sea and COMBINE efforts, and the Sea level Response to Ice Sheet Evolution (SeaRISE) community effort. Read more about ISMIP6.

WCRP Community News

Updates from the World Climate Research Programme Family; CLIVAR, GEWEX, SPARC, CORDEX and other partners

WCRP at the 17th WMO Congress

At the 17th World Meteorological Organization (WMO) Congress on Friday 29th May, the delegates reviewed the latest achievements of WCRP. The WMO Congress expressed appreciation for WCRP's continued, positive and effective relationship with its co-sponsoring organizations... read the article

Facilitating Analysis and Prediction: Interview with WCRP Director

Latest issue of International Innovation features an interview with WCRP Director David Carlson highlighting the Programme's cross-cutting role within the climate users. By facilitating analysis and prediction WCRP channels the knowledge of climate processes into products, prediction and assessment... read the article.

New GEWEX Website

If you visit www.gewex.org, you might notice a fresh new look to the site. GEWEX is pleased to share with you their newly-redesigned website, with a mobile-friendly layout and integration with their social media platforms. New features will be added in the coming months, so check back to see what's new!

CLIVAR International Project Office (ICPO) hosts workshop at the First Oceanography Institute (FIO) in China

The CLIVAR ICPO hosted Prof. Detlef Stammer, Scientific Steering Group (SSG) co-chair, and this presented the ideal opportunity to further engagement with Chinese colleagues from the three main oceanographic institutions in Qingdao: the First Oceanography Institute (FIO), the Ocean University of China (OUC), and the Institute of Oceanography of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (IOCAS).